Yellow House
by redwing55
Summary: “You’re more important than you know. Shut up. I don’t want to be dead, and you don’t want to be here. Didn’t your mother ever tell you life isn’t fair?” Roxas is a ghost, Axel just moved in, and things are about to get a little twisted... AkuRoku, AU
1. Chapter 1

mwahah. i return- with a twist!

**summary on crack:** axel. roxas. dark!sora. a ghost, a house, and dreaming. akuroku, sora x roxas, some sora x riku.

**disclaimer:** i own no ghosts, angsty squeenix/disney based characters, or houses, or the song long way down by the goo goo dolls. boo.

**author's note:** hello and welcome back to my crazy mind. i bet ya'll are expecting laughs and fluff now, aren't you? -snicker-

yeah so i lied. i was totally gonna write another huge fic but then i realized a) i was in school b) i was crazy and c) i like making no sense and being philsophical. so deal.

this story popped out of nowhere and starting screaming to be written down. it's akuroku, only because this fic is dark and angry and features death and fate and the author rambling on about mirrors and oranges. axel and roxas seem like that more to me. sora and riku are just to cute for bad things to happen to them. plus, i can't make them snark at each other like axel and roxas can!

this will be in two parts. it was going to be a one-shot, but then i realized that i was a rambler and no god or man can change that about me. so. yeah.

also- i rated this T, but has lots of swearing and later some other stuff, so it might jump to M.

without further ado...

welcome to the yellow house, where things are a lot darker this time around...

* * *

It was two a.m on a Sunday when I first saw my ghost. 

There's a lot of prologue I could go into, before I start this story, a lot of messy little plot points to get out of the way. My English teachers always did say start from the beginning- get the story right, don't get the reader all confused. But frankly, that little stuff seems pointless- I'd already had to explain to my parents about the whole no-more-college and no-more-classes and no-more-fucking-degree, and _boo hoo_, poor little Axel out on his own. And I don't want to have to listen to that kind of screaming again.

But I've already said too much and I_ will_ say too much later on, but let's stick to simplicity for now; my realtor's name was Damien, he had a handlebar mustache that twitched in agitation as he talked about property tax, and the tiny house was a bright, eye-catching, look-at-me-don't-I-just-want-to-make-you-puke-daffodils kind of color. That kind of yellow.

I told him I'd take it before five minutes had passed- anything to get away from the perky little mustache. And I had always been one for gut feeling- split-second decisions, decisions you regret almost immediately after you make them, and simultaneously don't regret at all. Not one fucking bit.

So, long story short; I was twenty and pissed and there was this yellow house, and it was Sunday morning in the dark and _he_ showed up and was so god awful tragic-beautiful, it was like dark teen poetry, like Shakespeare on speed- just like that. Just my ghost.

But there I go again. Getting ahead of myself.

* * *

I spent my first day at the yellow house exploring and then getting drunk. I had only brought a suitcase and a six-pack with me: the rest of my luggage was coming soon (not that that would be much of an improvement) but for now I had very little options for entertainment. 

I moved in at five on a Saturday night, and spent a while wandering around. The place had two bedrooms, one small and cramped and with the unmistakable dry feeling of a guest room, and one larger and with a large, creaky bed in the middle, and no other furniture. There was one bathroom, a living room, a kitchen and a back porch with a few scraggly weeds trying to poke their heads out of a tiny garden. There were three closets, four chairs, a table, a couch, and no carpets; the wood floor was very cold against my feet.

I stepped outside into the twilight and noticed the tiny square plot of yard, the trees behind it. There were even a few bushes in sight; I wondered if they produced anything edible. I remembered good ol' Damien mentioning something about blackberries, as if this was going to be the deciding factor in the sale. _See, this house is nice and all, but those **blackberries **just make it all worth it. Damn, those blackberries are so fine!_

I smirked a little to myself and closed the door; it was getting cold. I hadn't lived up here long but I had been prepared for the weather; when it wasn't raining it was snowing, when it wasn't snowing it was hot and humid as hell. It made the tiny little excuse for a garden out there even more comical; I wondered what the ex-owner had been trying to prove.

All of this had taken a half hour and I was bored as hell. It was just growing dark outside, and a few months ago that would have been cue to shut my books (assuming I had opened them in the first place, a very unlikely event) and go wandering around campus looking for trouble. I found very little of that, but there always was a lot of alcohol.

* * *

**oh, here you are—there's nothing left to say**

* * *

That night at the yellow house, I was tipsy by ten, drunk by midnight, wasted by two. My breath was hot and sticky and my throat felt clogged up as a drain, but there was the pleasant humming in my chest that was drowning out the empty, restless feeling that usually occupied that space. I was sprawled on the couch, using my suitcase as a pillow, and taking sips out of an already empty beer can. The night was dark and the house was dark and smelt faintly of dust, and the only light came from one gingery bulb in the kitchen that cast the corners into playgrounds of shadow. 

That's when Roxas showed up for the first time.

See, most people who've been haunted talk in terms of months or years, about the deep uneasiness in their chest and hearts and prickly noises at the corners of their ears, lights left on, doors slowly swinging shut, cold air across the cheeks. They talk about feelings and presences and feeling weird,_ man this feels so wrong, evil is here, something's here_.

Maybe I can consider myself lucky, that my ghost was so damn headstrong. There was no playing around in the dark for him, no little games of peek-a-boo-I-see-you. He got right down to it. He showed up, and that was that.

At first I thought I had gotten drunker than I thought. Strange things seemed to happen when I'd had too much to drink; certain boys looking decidedly more scared of me in the morning, clothes on backwards, things a bit more charred around the edges than I had left them last night. But I had never hallucinated before, so when I looked up and saw the kid—the boy—standing in the corner watching me, I sighed and took a drunken swipe at my eyes.

He was still there when I cracked my eyes open again. He was young-looking, but his gaze was fixed directly on me, and he was glowing, very faintly, around the edges.

"Maybe I'm asleep," I murmured.

"You're not asleep," he said, and that was the beginning.

* * *

His name was Roxas, he said, and he was dead- like those two things needed to be announced together, so I could fully understand the situation, like it would lessen the shock. _Hi, stranger, I'm Roxas and I'm stone-cold-mother-fucking-dead. Nice to meet you!_

"God, I must be drunker than I thought,' I slur. "This is whacked-_out_."

He sighs, for all the world like he's impatient with me. He takes a step into the moonlight and for a moment, he looks almost, but not quite, real. Through the haze I see he's shorter than me and emo-boy slim, and has fair hair and hard, direct eyes. Blue eyes.

"Don't be an idiot," he says, and takes another short step towards me. "You think I'm some kind of dream? Do I look like something you would imagine?"

"If this was a dream, you probably wouldn't be as clothed as you are," I say truthfully.

His ice-blue eyes grow positively glacial. "Are you seriously trying to hit on a ghost?"

"Cute ghost," I correct. "Plus, you're only a figment of my imagination, right? Won't remember this in the morning!"

Apparently I've said something wrong; he makes a snarling noise low in his throat and runs an angry hand through his hair, which I'm fascinated to see moves, each blond strand looking real enough to touch.

"Is this some kind of j_oke_?" he hisses out, but I get the distinct impression he isn't talking to me.

"Hey, lighten up, Roxum."

"Roxas," he says tightly. "It's _Roxas_."

"I thought ghosts didn't have names."

He shoots me a disgusted look. "You thought wrong."

I shake my head gleefully. "Man, this is so trippy. I should have hallucinations more often."

"Are you_ always_ like this?"

"People say I'm less moody when I'm drunk. Is that what you mean?"

He only stares at me some more, and I stare right back, alcoholic confidence bubbling through my veins. He was cute, but not in a kittens-and-puppies kind of way. There was metal in him. It shone out through his eyes.

"I can't deal with this right now," he says, and then I blink; once.

In the corner where he was standing, there's only a few faint specks of dust, floating idly in the moonlight.

I stare at where he was for awhile, trying to make sense of whatever it was that had just happened. But my hammered brain isn't up to the task, and I fall asleep within minutes, sprawled on the couch, the beer bottle clutched in my hand like a favorite teddy bear.

* * *

**you're not supposed to be that way…**

* * *

I could say a lot more boring stuff here. Like, hey, I woke up! And how I had a headache the size of a small mammal, and stumbled into of two of the three closets looking for the bathroom, or water, of Advil or _something_. I could go into great detail about tripping over one of the beer cans, shoveling something resembling food into my mouth for breakfast, and how much I didn't appreciate how nice the house looked by day, with the yellow paint on the walls shining and the floorboards gleaming, deep cherry tones. 

I could tell you all of this. But this story is about him, isn't it? So let's skip, press fast-forward, and jump to when I'm slumped over the counter and he appears beside the stove like he's Mary-freaking-Poppins about to bake me a turnover, or something.

Cut to how I don't remember much of last night.

Cut to how I make some sort of noise that isn't in any of the human languages I know. Something like, "Huzadh?"

"Are you sober yet?" he said to me, in a very cross voice for someone who has just dropped out of thin air into my kitchen.

"Who are you?" I ask, jumping up with more agility than I knew I possessed. "What are you doing in my kitchen?"

He rolls his eyes. "Well, I guess that's a bit of an improvement. I'm Roxas. _Rox-as_. We met last night?"

Hazy images are coming back to me through the drunken haze; a dark room, a glowing light, and blue, blue, angry blue eyes…

"Oh my god," I say, and sit down hard. "That was _real_?"

I don't believe it even as I say it; instinctively I scan the countertop for any drugs I might have ingested and then forgot about. But then my gaze finds him- Roxas?—and though it's true he looks less solid than last night he still looks _there_. In the light, he doesn't look more than eighteen. A kid.

"Shit,' is all I can think to say. "Shit shit _shit_."

Roxas says nothing, just stares at me like he's waiting for something coherent to come out of my mouth.

"Why are you here? What do you—oh, god, I'm talking to a ghost, _shit_…"

"Yeah, like you were a great conversationalist last night," he says mildly.

My mind is still reeling- this is something that cannot be happening, that defiantly shouldn't be happening. "Why are you talking to me? _Why are you here_?"

"Hey. This used to be _my_ house."

I stare at him, taking in the youthful, ethereal softness of his lips and chin. "You? Alone?"

"Don't sound so shocked," he snaps, and I know I've hit a nerve.

"So…you're still attached? That's why you're here? You don't want to leave the house?"

He looks like he's thinking about that hard, and I can't make out the expression in his eyes. Finally, he gives me a tiny nod. "You could say that."

The shock is fading now, the whole _omg-theres-a-ghost-in-my-kitchen-and-I'm-talking-to-him _haze was slowly clearing. Now I was just focused on one problem, for that's what it was at the time, a huge, fucking problem.

Now, I should explain something about myself here. Previously, you've only seen me alone or drunk, which are two very different things from being around other people. You know how people have a public self and a private self? Well, my private Axel is a tad moody. Lots of inner monologues and depressing stuff and Hemingway, when I'm sober enough to read. If public Axel met private Axel, public Axel would probably spill beer on private Axel and then laugh about it.

Public Axel is a bit vindictive. Public Axel doesn't take sympathy, kindness, or crap from anyone.

Public Axel was surfacing in full force.

"Well, we can't both live here,' I said flatly. "You're gonna have to just move on, then."

He raises an arched eyebrow. "Excuse me?'

"Let go, or whatever. It was alright rattling around here when it was empty, but I bought this place fair and square, and you can just clear out. I've got enough problems in my life without some poltergeist angsting in my kitchen."

His eyes narrow to slits. "_Angsting_…?"

"Yeah. So you can just get going."

The kid (ghost? Roxas?) does nothing but stand there, and somehow I can feel the anger rolling off him in waves, like heat that batters against my skin. His eyes lock into mine, and I can see it there, too, and something that is like frustration.I don't care. Right now I just want him gone, whatever he is, I want my house and I want a drink and I want to be alone.

"Real nice, Axel," he murmurs, and before I can ask how he know my name he's gone, he's blinked out like a light-bulb, and I'm by myself again.

* * *

**did they push you out? did they throw you away?**

* * *

Later, Roxas would get angry at me for this, especially when I reminded him about how pissy he was when we first met. 

"Can you blame me?" he would say, exasperation twisting up his ghostly features. "You wouldn't listen to me."

"I really didn't want to," I would say, sighing, leaning against a wall.

"Why not?"

I blinked open an eye, and there he was- so much closer than he would venture before, so close that if he was alive, I would able to feel his breath on my skin. But I know this is a ploy, so I ignore it.

"You had that look in your eyes."

"What look?" he asks innocently, though I know he hasn't been innocent a day in his death.

"_That_ look." I sigh and run a hand through my hair. "That look- it said that if I stared to close, you would have to pull me into this shit. Like a moth to the freaking flame, Roxy."

* * *

**touch me now and I don't care**

* * *

Roxas, as I would soon come to find out, was a persistent, stubborn son of a bitch, and he started playing with my dreams the night after he had disappeared from my kitchen. 

I had gone to bed reasonably early, around eleven; I was out of alcohol, my stuff still hadn't shown up, and I lacked the energy and money to take a trip into town. So I slipped beneath the covers of the creaky old bed in the bedroom and tried not to feel like too much of a loser, made some sort of promise that I would go into town and meet some kids and have some fun and forget about this stupid ghost thing, and then was deeply asleep.

He didn't wait long.

_It was a bright sunny day in mid-fall, and the leaves were brilliant pops of color, red and yellow and orange and bright, so bright. They cast lovely pattered shadows on the yellow house, which looked just like it had when I had bought it, only when I had bought the house it had been spring, and it wasn't me who was staring at it with appraising eyes, it was Roxas._

_Roxas…Roxas was alive. I had been right- he had been almost unbearably beautiful, in life- the soft golden light sifting through his hair, the youth shining on his face. Beautiful, but the stubborn twist of his lips warned that you better not call him that to his face. _

_I watched as he turned to the realtor (my own Damien, I saw with a shock, in pre-mustached days) and said "I'll take it," with an authority far past his years._

_Damien shifted nervously, standing next to his slim charge. "Um…yes, then I'm sure everything is in order, Mr...?"_

_"Roxas," my ghost said firmly. "Just call me Roxas, please."_

_"Roxas," the realtor repeated slowly, the words sounding thick and awkward on his tongue- the man looked like he hadn't called anyone by their first name in his life. "How will you be paying for the purchase?"_

_"If you want to go down to the bank I'll write you a personal check," Roxas says, his eyes never leaving the house._

_Damien twitches nervously behind him. "Sure, sure, I'm sure that will be satisfactory. And your parents…will they meet us there?"_

_When Roxas whirls on him, it is with such ferocity that I can feel the motion whipping through the landscape like a swift, snapping breeze. "No, my parents will not be meeting us there. I'm your client. Deal with me."_

_There is a brief, shocked silence._

_"Whatever you say, Mr. Roxas," Damien says quietly, clutching his clipboard like a life-raft._

_When Roxas turns back to face the house, his face has softened; it wears a gentler cast than anything I had previously seen on those hard features. His mouth is slightly open, his eyes wide and clear, his skin flushed with the bit of pre-winter cold that lurks in the ground and the air. He's even smiling; a faint, little smile._

_"So," he says, conversationally. "How soon can I move in?"_

I wake up gasping and he's sitting perched on the end of the bed, his face cupped in his hands, studying me for all the world like I'm his own personal theatre and have just been putting on a great performance.

"Nice dreams?" he asks pleasantly, and smiles a little. It is not the same smile I saw in the dream. This one has malice curled in its corners.

"What—no—you--?"

I rub my face in my hands and catch a glimpse of that triumphant little smirk. Light dawns.

"Did…can you…_did you_ _mess with my dreams_?"

He's studying his fingernails now, and I'm thinking I've never met anyone with this much sarcasm sliding out of their skin. "Oh, just a little. I thought since we're going to be living together, it would do for you to understand my situation."

I can feel my face heating up and know its turning as red as my hair. "Listen, _Roxas_. I don't want you reaching around in my head and making me relieve your precious fucking little memories! You hear me?!"

"Calm down," he says softly. "No need to yell. I'm right here."

"That's the problem!" I yell, clutching my pillow tighter to my chest and digging compulsively further into the bed _oh god it's his bed it must have been his bed what am I doing here_…

There is a silence that rings in the air, and Roxas' smile fades as he surveys me, as he waits for the inevitable question.

"Why are you doing this?"

"You need to help me." It's not a question.

"What? Do you need someone to hold your hand as you ascent to your higher plane?"

He blinks, slowly. "You're too sarcastic for your own good."

'Look who's talking."

"I can't leave you alone until you help me," he says, and for a second something like pain crosses his features. "Even if I wanted to."

"I could get an exorcism," I threaten, though in truth I have no idea how I would go about ringing up a Catholic priest and asking him to bring over the Bible and Holy Water. _Hey, Father Smith, yeah, there's this obnoxious blond ghost who says his name is Roxas, and he would be a helluva lot cuter if he wasn't dead and bitter. Help a brother out?_

Roxas seems to find this idea amusing; he laughs, at least, and it is a dry, unused sound. "An exorcism? C'mon, can't you think of anything better than that?"

"Watch me," I growl, and lunge forward before he can move.

I expect it, but am still shocked when my hands pass right through his torso, leaving me feeling nothing but a cold draft across my skin, like someone had left a window open. Looking down at my hands protruding from his abdomen, Roxas smirks. "Too bad. Guess it's pointless hitting on me after all."

"It was pointless anyway," I mutter, withdrawing my hands quickly and folding them close to the comforting heat of my own, alive chest. "Ghosts can't really feel anything, can you? Lust, or love?"

When I look up he's studying me very strangely, and once again I find his eyes had become icy walls, revealing nothing, expressing nothing.

He is silent for a long time before he speaks. "Technically, our hearts die along with our bodies."

"So, I'm right, then. You can't feel anything."

He doesn't answer, but stands up suddenly- I keep half expecting him to swoop around the room like a bat- and paces the floor at the foot of my bed. The floor is dusty, but he leaves no footprints.

"Will you help me, then?"

But right now I'm tired, cold, feeling decidedly strange to be conversing with a ghost in the middle of my bedroom when all I want to be doing is dreaming, dreaming easy, normal dreams. "If I help you with whatever it is, will you leave me alone?"

A pause in the pacing. "I can't promise anything."

"What is it that I would need to do, then? And if you say 'avenge my death'…"

"Sorry. Can't tell you. Not yet. You have to understand some stuff first. About me, I mean."

"Does this mean more dreams?"

"Yes."

I groan and sink back into my pillow. "Nothing's easy with you, is it, Roxas?"

"No," he says, and the smile is back, so small you would have to squint to see it. "No, I guess not."

* * *

He gives me one more dream that night, mostly because I think he knows I'm too sleepy to jerk myself out of it and partly because he's still pissed about the exorcism comment. This one is shorter, fuzzier, and when I wake up all I can remember is standing invisibly next to Roxas as he paces the halls of the yellow house, mimicking my actions of a few days ago, poking into the closets, standing in the backyard, feeling the cold air on his skin. He scuffs out a box in the dirt where the dying garden will be, and jumps a little when the floorboards squeak under his sneakers. When it gets dark he heads into the living room and watches television as I watch him, his eyes growing heavy until it's just him, asleep, and the blue glow of the t.v lights up his features, marks the curves of his sleeping eyelids in swirls of flashing, dim light. 

I stare at him for a long time.

Hours later, when the morning sun is peering hesitantly over my curtains, I wake up feeling lonely, and I know it's his feeling, and not mine.

* * *

**when you take me I'm not there**

* * *

It's surprising how easily one can adjust to have a ghost as a roommate. 

You know what the funny thing was? If someone had chosen to pop into my life and ask me about supernatural shit, like vampires and werewolves and aliens, I probably would have told them to stop watching the X-Files and get to a club. This from the guy who was being awoken every morning with someone's else's dreams in his head, from someone who barely blinked when a ghost popped up next to him as he made scrambled eggs and looked hungrily over his shoulder. Hell, if that same guy asked me about ghosts there would be a longer pause than there should be. I think I was still under the impression, deep down in my mind, that Roxas was mine, whatever he was, all mine; my delusion, my paranoia, my fantasy. Not something commonplace that could classified next to Casper in the encyclopedia. _Mine_.

I never did share these particular thoughts with Roxas, though he grew to be something of a presence in my life. Nothing I did seemed to deter him- I could be napping, hiding, in any room or any corner of the house and he would come and go as he pleased, exchange a few snippy, enigmatic words, and be gone again, but never for more than a hour, never long. I think he liked testing my limits, in that way- since I couldn't do a thing about him he was seeing how far he could throw me.

I guess he thought popping into the shower would be a fun shock factor. He looked pearly in the steam, leaning against the slick walls with his arms crossed across his chest. He seemed almost bored, or was trying to look that way. I don't know what he was expecting me to do, but hey, stuff like that didn't faze me- I had lived in an all boy's dorm for too long with people who were far more gone they he had ever been.

He seemed almost disappointed that I didn't shriek or cover myself or demand his immediate absence. I watched as his eyebrows furrowed. I found myself thinking it cute.

"Like what you see?" I said, feeling an easy smirk slip over my features.

He doesn't laugh. I've found out he never does, not once since I've met him. Rarely smiles, too. He's not smiling now, just staring. Staring hard and long.

"You know," I say, turning my back to him and kneading some shampoo into my hair, "All the people I've met say I have a nice ass. I'd like an option from beyond the grave, though."

But he's gone when I turn around, just like I knew he would be.

* * *

It's strange how quickly I forget that he's dead. 

It's like, one second it hits me hard, full hard, right like a lead weight across the face. _Am I crazy? Is there really a ghost in my house? And oh shit, he can mess with my dreams. He can mess your head, Axel, or maybe it's your head that's messed up in the first place, maybe it's been too much drugs and too few years and being alone that makes all the voices cry out louder…_

But then he appears and the doubt is gone, just like that. Poof. I know you can't really believe this; I'm sure if a ghost appeared in your kitchen and started carrying on a conversation you would probably run screaming to your local therapist. But you haven't seen the kid. Something about him just screams, no, not screams, says with that voice (you know the voice, the quiet voice, the power voice), it just says Listen To Me. Shut up and listen to me. We have work to do.

He's given me more dreams and I can't see a pattern, or maybe I'm just bad at this game. He keeps rattling on about this big secret purpose and how I need to help him, but so far none of that's leaked through. So far it's just been me spying on him as he made a pathetic excuse for a pasta dinner, slept, and handled some pretty explosive phone calls that I never pry about in the morning. I know parents.

He even brought kids back to the house once; friends, once, I think, but the memories are skippy and I'm never quite sure of the timeline but I'm sure it's been weeks or months, and all they can do is talk awkwardly about college and how Roxas is missing out. They leave right after dinner and Roxas locks the door behind them.

He shows me planting the garden, too, and these are the memories I enjoy most, him in the sunshine, his skin and hair drinking the gold light in greedily, long, pale fingers fussing with the soil and the leaves and tiny, delicate stalks of tomatoes and peppers.

"Why the garden?" I ask, after I wake up. "And why no flowers?"

He snorts at me from his customary perch at the end of the bed. "Flowers? What use are those to me?"

I notice something else, those days. He can follow me all over the house, but he never once follows me outside.

* * *

**almost human, but I'll never be the same **

* * *

_Its night in the house, dark and pregnant with quiet and for the first time Roxas is nowhere in sight. It's not going to be him planting vegetables or washing dishes this time. This is night. At night he sleeps, alone. But I'm not in the bedroom and I'm not by the couch, I'm in the kitchen, and I know intuitively the yellow house is empty, that he's not here. _

_I wait for what seems like a long time, and I'm getting half a mind to ask Roxas- my Roxas, not past-Roxas- what's he's playing at, when I notice headlights in the driveway. So I wait, and listen._

_The door creaks open softly and Roxas steps inside, but he doesn't close it. Instead he stands in the doorway with his arms crossed nervously in front of his chest and stares at the person left outside. "Erm...do you want to come in? Coffee, or…whatever…?'_

_There is an amused little laugh, and I drift closer so I can see who he's talking to in the light. It's a boy, that much I can see; another beauty like Roxas, with skin like burnt cream and artfully styled brown hair. I can't make out his eyes. _

_"Nah," he's saying, "Nah, better not. It's late, and I've got some stuff to do in the morning."_

_"Oh," Roxas says. My trained ear can hear the disappointment in his voice._

_The person laughs again, and smiles widely into the dark. "Don't think for a moment it's because of you, Roxas. I haven't had that much fun in a while."_

_"Yeah. Me too."_

_The other person is quiet for a moment, and from my perch behind Roxas I can almost feel his thoughtful stare. "We should do this again sometime. You and me, I mean."_

_Roxas lifts his head up very suddenly. "We should? But…at the club…that Riku guy…"_

_"And how many times do I have to tell you," the stranger says chidingly, "Riku is only a friend. I'm single. Ready to be wooed, swept off my feet, champagne under the moon. The works." He winks. "If you're up to the task, that is."_

_"Well…um…Friday?'_

_"Pick you up at seven," the boy says smoothly, and before I can blink he's swooped up, lightning swift, and given Roxas a quick, tantalizing kiss._

_"Night," he says._

_Long after he's gone, after his the sound of his footsteps crunching on gravel has faded and the glare of his headlights has given way to darkness, Roxas still has his fingers pressed against his lips._

He's looking blank and cold again when I come out of the dream, like he's already preparing for me to make some teasing comment about how he was such a little-bitty-softy when he was alive.

Instead I ask, "How did you meet that guy?"

He blinks, and for a second there's a passionate emotion dancing behind his eyes. It's gone when I look again.

"At a club, a couple of towns over. I was tired of the TV."

He's sitting on the edge of the bed (my bed? his? ours?) and once again the differences hit me full force. It's not just the way the moonlight passes through him to collect in a puddle of shadow, but how he holds himself, drawn and tight and so, so inward.

"And did you go out with him again?"

"You'll have to see, won't you?"

He uncoils himself stiffly, moving towards the door. "Get some sleep, Axel. I'll see you in the morning."

* * *

He doesn't give me more dreams that night, but that doesn't matter; I'm lying awake thinking about the boy by the door and how Roxas held his finger to his lips after a stranger kissed him there. Like no one had ever touched him before.

* * *

told you, didn't i? 

rightio, things get twisted in the next installment.

reviews for pissy roxas-ghost? it'll cheer him up!

or not.


	2. Chapter 2

hey guys- posting this quick, i've had it sitting on the computer for awhile..not sure how this is going to end, but it will end eventually..for now, here's the middle?

disclaimer: not mine. warning- craziness, swearing, weird images and sora being...unsora like.

enjoy!

* * *

**long way down, I don't think I'll make it on my own**

Roxas and I grow to have a weird relationship.

I can't classify it under anything I've previously experienced ; not a friend, defiantly not a boyfriend, and calling him a brother would make me shudder. Not an acquaintance, as deeply immersed in each other's lives as we are, but not a confident either; there are things we both won't, can't say. We both pity each other, for very different reasons, even as we gravitate closer and closer together, but always circling, never taking a straight step forward.

He'll ask me the weirdest things, out of the blue. Over coffee it's "What's your favorite season?" and as I read a book, "Have you ever read Plato?" As I put on my coat and leave for the bar, he'll be standing in the archway between the hall and the kitchen, saying, almost offhandly, "I hadn't ever been a bar, before I died. I would have liked to go."

"You were eighteen," I point out.

His scowl depends. "Aren't you twenty?"

"Different stories, kid. Different stories."

* * *

I ask him things too, things I probably shouldn't ask.

"What's it feel like to be a ghost?"

He looks at me from across the room, and his face clearly says that this is a deeply personal question.

"Sorry," I say, holding my hands up. "Just curious."

There is always a long pause before he answers my most important questions, and this one seems the longest.

"Painful," he says finally. "It's painful."

He shoots me a sidelong glance, and runs a hand through his hair again. "But that might just be me."

* * *

In the dreams that night and the night after I watch another boy standing on the doorway of the yellow house and leaning up to kiss my ghost. I watch him run a sly hand through that bush of brown hair, I watch the seductive twists of his lips, I watch the carefully timed brushes of the hand and the artful band of stomach the almost-too-short shirt shows. I watch the backs of his fingers brush over Roxas' palm, I watch butterfly kisses, I watch chocolate and roses and wide, bright smiles.

I watch those eyes, when I can, blue, so blue, oceans and skies without rain blue. They tease and play with me and Roxas both, glimmering, lashes brimming over with innocence and loveliness and _oh please you want to dance with me under the stars and call this your fairy-tale, don't you, don't you, say you will._

Mostly, though, I watch Roxas; how he doesn't know what do with his hands when he gets kissed goodnight, how he tried to put the roses in water and watches them die on the counter, how he still looks shocked every time the doorbell rings. How he never knows how wide open to leave the door when the boy stands outside- full and spread, an open invitation, or just enough so that he and his slim body can nestle between the folds of the house, while his date remains outside?

In my dreams, I watch Sora kiss Roxas on the doorstep every night, fractions longer every time, and cannot tear my eyes away from that boy's lips, which move through the air and touch and press hard against Roxas' pale, solid skin.

**long way down, I don't want to live in here alone**

It's a Friday night and I'm in someone else's house, taking sips from someone else's beer, listening to someone else's music. It must be about eleven at night and already I'm getting tipsy. It's been far too easy to slip myself back into this; the party culture, the weaving bodies and the thick, loud music that ripples through all these young bones. There are only a few lights on, and everyone is half hidden in enticing shadow. People in corners are beckoning for a partner, for someone to come and trace the darkness on their skin.

I don't even know whose house this is; one of the few friends I've made in the month since I've been here, one of the few people I've talked to in this town who isn't dead and annoying, ran into me at the grocery store the other day and breathed it slyly into my ear. "More people wanna meet you, Axel. You're new. New is exciting. New is different."

Well, what kind of guy could say no?

I didn't say goodbye to Roxas or tell him where I was going and any guilt I'm feeling about that is bubbling away with every sip I take from the bottle, back in its comforting position, hooked loosely around my wrist with the broad lip of my thumb pressed tightly onto the rim. My thoughts are coming in broken chains but my skin is feeling warmth from other bodies, sticky bodies, smelling of recklessness and smoke. But what gets me is the heat, because the yellow house is cold, so cold, and here when I rock my hips someone else' flesh messily kisses mine.

Time flies fast, at parties, and soon the past few hours are a blur of light and color and music and eye sex with a few cute boys lurking in the corner. People keep coming up to me, introductions being made that probably won't be remembered in the morning. They all echo my friend, they're all messy lips and wide, white eyes, and their bodies say, "So new, so different, you, Axel---we've been waiting for _you_."

I could lie and say it was perfect.

But through the sweat and smoke and the fog of lust creeping in the air and corners, I was thinking about Roxas. I was being logical, an almost irrevocable sin at a party like this, but I couldn't help thinking if newcomers were so rare around here, some of these people might know him, might have remembered the shy-eyed kid that moved some impossible years ago. It probably would even be safe to ask, if they were in this state, probably wouldn't think to question why the new kid was asking about someone who had died years and years ago, in the house where he lived, and why he knew the kid had stubborn lips and metal eyes.

That gets me started and I can't stop- Roxas might have been here, in this very house, might have hated or loved these people dancing around me. My thoughts fly away and cross the miles, and my mind conjures up guilt; him, sitting on the edge of our bed, waiting for me to get home so he can show me pictures of when he was alive. Or off, disappeared somewhere, in the invisible space where he goes.

Either way he was alone.

Empathy is not my strong point, never has been, but maybe it was the alcohol; all of a sudden this felt like watching a bad movie of my life backwards and in slow-motion. And I hated myself for that. I told myself I couldn't leave, cause what would that make me—someone who left the warm and ready for a cold, dead excuse for a friend? One of those people I hated, who pretended they were above the party scene and lived life with the lights on? Because some measly ghost, I was going to be boring and alone?

My feet had already carried me out the front door. The night was freezing, and I wrapped my coat around my thin frame and began to shiver.

I was a fucking idiot, at that moment. I knew it. I sure as hell wasn't okay with it. But it wasn't like I had an option, anymore.

* * *

I walked down Main Street heading for one that internet café place I had seen on my first day, and it's right where I left it; almost empty but still open, manned by a tired-looking girl leaning on the cappuccino machine. She takes my money wearily and points me to the back corner, which I take gladly.

The first search for ghost yields some kind of paranormal investigators crap. I click on it, just for the hell of it, and discover stuff about "apparitions" and "malignant spirits" and "warding your home against evil invaders." The next is a huge archive of ghost stories, and the third is a link to a bestselling book, which, by the look of it, is about a hysterical woman jumping every time a door slammed.

The fourth is not like the others. It's laid out in plain black font- easy on my sore eyes—and gets right to the point. "Ghosts," it says, "are frequently defined as the spirit or soul of a human being which has left its physical form, and, for whatever reason, has been unable to leave its proverbial environment on earth."

I start reading, and don't stop until the woman comes back to tell me that they're closing.

* * *

It's three a.m when I finally get home, and the house is silent and deadly as the grave. I'm a little spooked in spite of myself; I know Roxas but the articles I poured over painstakingly recounted examples of spirits gone bad, the ghosts of the horror movies, with empty eyes and grasping, clawing hands.

But I hang my keys up and turn on the kitchen light and there he is, nothing bad, just Roxas. He's sitting on one of the chairs with the unmistakable look of someone who's just been sitting and waiting in the dark.

We study each other in silence.

"Where were you?" he asks finally, and his voice is low and flat.

"At a party. Should I have left a note?"

I get no response from him; instead he stands up and begins to move towards the stairs. "I've only got one dream tonight. I'll make it quick."

He's halfway to the door already, but I can't stop myself, the new knowledge and the questions that come with are bubbling under my skin like a firecracker. "You…you said you're attached to the house."  
He stops dead and turns, giving me an incredulous look with those sapphire eyes. "And?"

"I don't think that's all," I say, hardly able to believe the words that are coming out of my mouth. "You don't like being here alone. You _didn't_ like being here alone, cause if you did, you wouldn't just appear and start carrying on a fucking conversation with me, Roxas, you would use those…little powers, of yours, or whatever, to give me nightmares, haunt me, _whatever_. You could scare the shit out of me, Roxas, you know you could, and I would be gone in a few days, you know that."

I take a deep breath and stare him straight in the eye. "So it's not the house. What is it?"

He looks stunned for the first time I can remember, but almost instantly the icy mask is back on, all emotion hidden behind the steel traps of his eyes. "Who says it has to be anything?"

My voice quickens on its own accord. "Roxas, if it wasn't something, you wouldn't be here. Your spirit would have moved on."

He smiles thinly, and it is one of the most sinister things I have ever seen. "Aren't we the expert, now? I thought I was the dead one here, Axel. Don't pretend you know shit about me and how this works."

But he doesn't know who he's talking to; I'm still a bit drunk and tired and there has always been defiance laced deep, deep into my bones, and I'm not going to get talked down to by a kid, a dead, angry kid. "Don't play idiot with me. You know what your trigger is. They all say different things- some says it's talking to a certain person, a place, just sheer force of will, whatever. But they all agree; that if a ghost doesn't want to move on, it's for a fucking _reason_, Roxas."

We're standing on opposite sides of the kitchen, and all of a sudden it hits me how weird this might look to an outsider; a young, red-haired guy, out of breath and smelling of beer and smoke and sweat and spouting facts like a faucet of bad Internet research, and on the other side, a slim, angry ghost whose arms are locked tight across his chest and whose blond hair glows blue in the moonlight.

"It's stepping outside," Roxas says, quite suddenly. "I leave when I step outside."

I can't think of what to say- I'm not sure whether I've won or not. The knowledge is mine but the look he's wearing is that of subtle triumph.

He sighs, all fake weariness, and moves towards the hall again.

"C'mon, let's go to bed. One memory. Short, I promise."

**long way down, I don't think I'll make it on my own**

After the party I don't leave the house much anymore.

This is and is not my own fault; there are certainly times that fly thick and fast where I sit on the couch with my hands cradled in my hair and wish for normalcy, wish fervently for a beer to hold and a person to grab and push and whisper to, someone whose skin is thick like rubber under my fingertips. I wish for the grocery store, for broccoli glistening in plastic bags and fluorescent lights, and I wish for just one cup of fucking coffee that wasn't prepared in the brewer that sits on the counter and sputters out something feeble and thick that isn't quite liquid and isn't quite solid.

I've given up explaining this even to myself. I shower, I eat, I breathe, I watch Oprah at two in the afternoon. I read fucking books, for crying out loud. _Books_. Little thin books full of swearing and prose and little brief bursts of poetry like flowers after the rain. I sleep and dream and brush my teeth every morning and sometimes just sit and look at the walls as if waiting for them to start crumbling. I wait for one day to wake up for and fifty years to have passed, centuries, except I still look and feel the same and the whole world outside the yellow house is a blazing freeway that is all scarlet and white light flashing by, fast forward.

Sometimes I think I'm going crazy. Sometimes I think Axel is gone, that I threw him away somewhere on the gritty pavement of this town and left him trampled and broken there.

Sometimes I think he never really existed, and that all the anger settled into my skin can be peeled away like the skin of an orange if only I would dig my fingernails in deep enough.

And sometimes, I think I love Roxas.

Sometimes, I think I hate him more than anyone I have ever known.

He still takes me by surprise, this beautiful broken statue of a boy. Like I think I'm used to his words and then there's one that stings too deep, adjectives and broken pronouns turning sharp around the edges and digging deep into my infected skin, and there are some times when he doesn't say anything, and I catch him out of my the corner of my eye and I could have sworn that he was looking at me, right at me, so hard- like he was trying to see, and his eyes were bottomless pools of sorrow and hope.

He gives me more and more dreams but I dream about him to, my own dreams, my own illusion, and sometimes he's alive and sometimes he's dead and sometimes I want to hit him and sometimes it's other stuff. Mostly its scattered illusions, like looking of a mirror of life that's been broken in so many places you can't see it straight, him eating scrambled eggs with giant wings protruding from his shoulder-blades, touching his arm and feeling him melt away under my fiery fingertips. Dancing, only when Roxas dances in my dreams it looks more like breaking slowly into pieces.

I hate thinking like this, all philosophical and shit. I want to talk about midterms and beer and dinner, TV shows. I want the fog to come back in and settle over my mind, cause when the yellow house gets quiet the world gets so clear and empty, it's like looking deep into eternity and seeing yourself looking back at you.

After the party, I don't leave the house much anymore.

And it's all his fault, him and his words. "These dreams aren't just for kicks, Axel. Watch. Listen." And when I'm not paying attention, when I'm being particularly snarly and vicious and vindictive, which happens often, that terrible patience. "You're more important than you know. Shut up. I don't want to be dead, and you don't want to be here. Didn't your mother ever tell you life isn't fair?"

Roxas would let me leave, but he doesn't want me to leave. And so I stay.

* * *

_Roxas is standing by the door again and it's got to be the sixth time this week- him and Sora meet every night at the house and buzz out into the night like a whirlwind, and come back tense and happy. They are not good for each other, or maybe that's just my bias. Roxas—and it's hard to think of him that way, cause he's so far away from mine—is shy, enigmatic, introspective, childish in everything he does, and __**Sora**_

_Sora is darkness dressed up in pretty colors, like a kaleidoscope that is constantly turning. It is very hard to see. Flash, turn, side one and he's all charm and smiles and a tilted, laughing face. But then, if you're not looking (like Roxas isn't looking), you don't notice when the trinket turns-- quick, __**quick**__, a flash and a turn and then for a brief second his teasing eyes explode like lightning, framed by sharp eyelashes and sharper cheekbones._

_His bubbly laugh makes me shudder._

_They are not good together._

_Now it is another night by the door and Roxas has thrown it wider, and his big blue eyes are begging for something, anything. And it's like handing a china plate to a panther, the empty space next to him on the kitchen floor. I watch as the door swing fully open, and I watch Sora's first step into our yellow house; hard and sure, like he kisses Roxas._

_Roxas is so innocent, even pretends like he was really going to make coffee, but Sora's more like me than I care to admit and he is all about speed and the small thud of a body meeting the wall, all too eagerly eats up the short gasp that flies from Roxas' lips and buries it between his white, smiling teeth. _

_I don't want to follow them when they stumble up the stairs, 'cause my heart is gasping with something awful, but I know this is something I must do for reasons I don't know or care about; my feet plod thoughtlessly up the stairs. The only thing that stops me from reaching for the small, wiry, brunet is the knowledge that he will feel nothing, while I will feel everything; the biting, piercing cold._

_I try not to watch, but I cannot close my eyes and the sounds would create entire movies of their own, and dimly I feel goose bumps on my real body because that is my bed, my body is sleeping in that bed that is all tangled sheets and limbs and sweat and the mingling of blond and brown hair and blue eyes. _

_I try not to look, but I do anyway, just so it becomes crystal clear that Sora has won._

* * *

When I wake up it isn't even morning yet, and Roxas is nowhere to be seen.

I hop out of bed quickly, not caring about my bare chest in the cold and my bare feet on the floor, instead choosing to scream shout whisper, "Roxas. Roxas.** Roxas**!"

He appears almost softly this time, trickling into existence like a beam of light. He sits on the end of the bed, his spine against the backboard, and doesn't look me in the eye.

"What?"

"You know what." There is anger in my voice that I don't try to hide.

He shrugs. "So I slept with him. Big deal."

I struggle with the words to explain why this is such a sin; he was alive and young and single and I certainly wasn't in the picture, and it's not like I'm a blushing virgin. But the hot angry blood pumping through my veins is screaming with the wrongness and pain.

"Roxas…did you even love him?" I ask, and my voice doesn't waver, not even on that last phrase.

He snorts, and almost reflexively draws his knees up to his chest. "What do you think?"

"Think? What do I think? I don't know what I think!" My voice is rising, echoing into the night. "I don't know what I think anymore, Roxas, I don't know why I can't leave you and this and I don't know why I have to watch someone I care about fucking another boy, the wrong boy, oh _god_, couldn't you see how wrong he was, underneath all that- Roxas, are you that much of an idiot?!"

There is a long silence that seems longer than it is, and my Roxas is looking at me, and he's so mine, and he's not the Roxas from the dream at all. This one is simultaneously harder and softer, indestructible and frozen, but his eyes are impossibly sad.

"One more dream left," he says shortly, and then-- gone.

**is there anything to feel?**

I wander downstairs in the morning and open the fridge; nothing but a half-empty jar of milk, a head of lettuce, and a package of American cheese that has mold curling around the corners. There is bread in the drawer so I take the cheese and peel off the offending spots, throw some butter onto the grill and being to fry it.

The kitchen is very quiet. I usually don't like music, preferring the silence of my own head, but now I wanted it, just to drown out the thoughts relentlessly surfacing.

I grit my teeth and avoid looking at the door at the corner of the kitchen

_(the door he pushed threw open and I heard it smack dryly into the wall, and Roxas toeing quietly around the coffee machine, his hands clumsy and awkward)_

and just try to focus on the grilled cheese, my breakfast- but then again, it is one in the afternoon, so maybe lunch? The clock on the wall ticks quietly

_(the hands were splayed about the face when Sora pushed Roxas against the wall underneath them, and the ways his ankles and thighs hit the wallpaper made them shake and tremble)_

and I move the butter around the frying pan in messy arcs and finally decide it's time to lower the sandwich down. When it hits the pan is hisses

_(and Sora hissed too, so quietly you wouldn't be able to hear but I was watching his diamond eyes and they were sparkling with something hungry and his pupils were so wide and black)_

The pan slips from my hand and clatters messily onto the floor.

The cheese and bread and butter lie splattered on the tiles, but I don't move to pick them up. My fingers are slightly burnt where the pan slipped between them, and I move over to the sink. I hold them beneath the cool running water, let a muttered, "shit," escape my lips as I feel the pain. Through the window above the sink, I can see the woods and the yard and the bushes, looking bright and clean.

"Shit," I say again, but this time it's because I'm wondering how this all happened so fast.

Twilight trips and falls over the world.

* * *

love? hate? oranges? review! 


	3. Chapter 3

urg sorry it's been awhile, this is messing with my head and i can't get it to sit right...i'm pretty satisfied with this part so i'm gonna throw it out there before i go crazy.

so here you go...the last dream.

again: i own nothing.

0000000000000000

I lie in bed and wonder how long I can stay awake, making myself deliberately uncomfortable 'cause I know what's coming and I don't want to see. My body is twisted up sideways and my head is on my propped-up hand, and my unwashed hair feels oily and coarse between the fingers. The sheet is up to my waist, and Roxas is sitting at my feet, smiling a little smile at me again, like the effort I'm making is cute, like I'm a little kid hiding from monsters by pulling the sheet above my head.

"Sleep," he says, and makes the command sound almost gentle.

I press my lips hard together. "No."

"Sleep," he says, and his blue eyes bore into mine.

I sleep.

000000000000000000

_Sora is back in the kitchen like he never left, and it's eerie how comfortable he looks there, like he's been living in the yellow house all his life; he holds a chipped mug in one hand and Roxas in the other. Past-Roxas is leaning into his shoulder like he's sleepy, but his eyes are open._

_The clock on the wall reads half past midnight._

_Sora takes another sip from his cup and yawns, and for a moment I'm disarmed by the motion; it's cute and innocent, and he puts the mug down on the counter and wraps his arms around Roxas' waist, and Roxas tries to lean into him, but they're the same height so where Roxas would come up to my chin, Sora's forehead messily kisses the back of his hair._

_"I like it here," Sora says, musingly, and his fingers splay across Roxas' stomach. "It's really comfortable. Big, too. Don't you ever get lonely in here, all alone?"_

_"Not really. I like the quiet, and when I get lonely you come over." Roxas smiles but because he's back-to-front with Sora, it looks for a second like he's smiling right at me._

_"Well…" Sora says, "What if I was over here more often?"_

_Roxas laughs, and the silence eats up the sound. "More? You're over here every night, practically. And don't you work during the day?'_

_"You're really new at this, aren't you?" Sora sounds older than he is. "Look, dork—I'm trying to ask if we can live together."_

_Time stops._

_Roxas freezes, and for a second something hard and familiar settles over his eyes. He blinks and it's gone, and he gives a short awkward laugh and pulls gently away from Sora, so he's facing him. "What? I mean, we've only been going out for a month and a half…you only started…staying over…two weeks ago."_

_"But really like you, Roxas. Don't you really like me? Don't you want to be with me?"_

_Roxas casts a nervous glance around and I can see what he's looking at; the corners and curves of the yellow house, the bright wallpapers and the creaking wood floors and a silence and a space he owns._

_When he looks back at Sora, his expression is hard to read. "Course I care about you. You're my first real boyfriend. But…I'm only eighteen…"_

_"All the better," Sora says smoothly. "You need someone else to take care of you, help you get around…"_

_Roxas laughs nervously. "I can take care of myself."_

_A quick flash and there's something in Sora's eyes, but it doesn't quite disappear when he blinks, stays there like something lurking in the shadows. "Are you saying no?"_

_"Well…I…"_

_'I love you. Don't you love me?"_

_And there are seconds that pass and I want to run to them and I don't know, drag Roxas away into the corners and closets of this place and hide him deep. But the selfish part of me is thinking of all the steel buried within Roxas and how he needed to be cut deeply, very deeply, in order to reach it._

_So I stand, hands on the counter, eyes locked and ready._

_Roxas stands there and he looks so solid in the faded light of the kitchen; the reflections of his skin and the depth of his eyes and the soft questioning curve of his lips when he stands there, silent._

_"Don't you love me?" Sora asks, and his voice is as small and meek as a five-year olds, but his body is black in the shadows, and for a second his eyes flash- not blue, but lightning yellow._

_And then he jumps._

00000000000000000

_I have been in bar-fights and dorm-fights and fist-fights but I never realized how loud the sound of a nose breaking is, how sharply you can hear the short snap of bones. Roxas does not have a chance. Sora has turned into something unrecognizable and inhuman, and though I clench my fists until my knuckles turn white, I do not cry. I don't cry. Not even for this._

_But I do look away._

_The house falls still and silent again within minutes. There is something dark and crumpled on the floor that I don't look at—it is neither the old, beautiful Roxas, nor mine, and therefore I don't associate my feelings of anger and grief at it, but at Sora, who is standing in the corner of the counter, breathing heavily. I take a step closer to him, invisible, and I can see his bright sun-colored eyes spinning like tops in their sockets._

_It is a long time before he becomes himself again._

_It starts slowly, just something in his expression, and then he's moved a hand in front of his face, studying the blood there. He breathes deeply, closes his eyes, and when he opens them again they're back to their cornflower blue._

_Methodically, he reaches into the pocket of his jeans and pulls out a cell phone, quickly dials in a number learned by heart. I move closer to hear._

_There are three rings, and then a hard voice. "Hello?"_

_Sora breathes. "Riku."_

_The voice on the line changes swiftly and sharply. "Sora! Where have you been? We've been looking for you for like, two months! Where the hell have you run off too, Kai's been in tears constantly, you do realize you punched her before you ran off? And.."_

_Sora lets out of tiny sob, and Riku shuts up instantly. When I look in his eyes they are as wide and innocent as a child's. "Riku. I….it….I didn't mean to…."_

_There is a rush of static from the other line, then a quiet, defeated, "Shit, Sora."_

_"I'm sorry," Sora says, crying a little, but I notice that he isn't even looking at the crumpled body on the floor._

_The other man's voice is low and careful. "Alright. Wash up, carefully, then get in your car and drive to the diner at the edge of town. I'll meet you there, okay? You'll be okay. We'll fix this."_

_Sora nods, "Thanks, Ri. Thanks so much."_

_He shuts off the cell phone with a quiet click and looks around the kitchen, sighing and running a finger though his hair. Then he leaves through the kitchen door, and closes it behind him._

_The house is silent in his wake._

00000000000000000000

"Technically, it wasn't all his fault."

I open my eyes slowly to see my Roxas, pearly and glowing the moonlight. How he will always look to me, from now on.

Slowly, his words filter though my head. "What?"

"I said, technically, it wasn't all his fault."

'Strangling you." My voice is flat. "Suppose his hands have minds of their own, do they?"

He pauses for a moment. "Sora…Sora is complicated. He had a disorder, a disease- went through some kind of ordeal when he was a kid, messed him up bad. Normal on the outside, but…" Roxas shrugs, for all like he's talking about the weather. "He still has a child's tendencies, a child's morals- he craves love, and affection, and control. When he doesn't get them…" Roxas shrugs, dispassionate.

I study him and he's studying me. "So, you forgive him?"

"No," Roxas says quietly, pleasantly. "I want that son of a bitch dead."

"I thought you said— "

"Oh, I'm sure it's not his fault. I'm sure some shrink would say it's just a problem that can be dealt with drugs or a nurse or supervision or whatever. But he took my fucking life. And I want it back."

"Roxas, you know…you can't…"

"No," he says, and then he does something he's never done before; moves closer to me on the bed. "No, I don't want that."

He knows I have a weakness for his eyes. He uses them now, commanding me, begging me.

"No," I say, and then louder, "No!"

He sighs angrily. 'I haven't even asked you yet!"

"Yeah, but it's kind of clear where you're going, isn't it? I don't want to go kill someone for you, Roxas!"

"Funny," he says sharply. "I had the impression you would help me."

"This isn't helping you," I say, wonderingly. "This isn't what you want."

He glares at me, and all the rage and frustration of our first meeting is burning hot in his eyes. "You don't know what I want."

He's gone in a flash of angry light.

I sit up for another moment in the silence, then lean back onto the hard pillow and creaky mattress.

I love him, this much I am willing to admit. But how far can I go for someone who's already dead?

I think of the expression he wore before he disappeared, hopeless and furious. I even think that maybe, this is the last time I will ever see my ghost.

0000000000000000000000

I am wrong. Very wrong.

000000000000000000000

I don't know when I fall asleep. Late. Later than it was after Roxas had dreamed himself dead on the kitchen floor. You'd think I wouldn't be able to fall asleep after something like that, but my capacity for exhaustion surprises even me.

It's hard to tell that it's a dream. It's the same room, the same bed; maybe different lighting, a little softer, a little more gold. Unlike before, I can see myself, feel myself, and here I am. I pinch myself. It hurts. I don't wake up.

This is a dream, and I'm waiting for Roxas. And he doesn't disappoint.

He appears suddenly on the edge of the bed. His skin glows and turns bright in the places where the light from the window is hitting it.

He smiles at me. Softly, like he means it.

"I thought there were no more dreams," I say, because I don't know what else I'm supposed to do.

"I lied," he says, and before I can blink he's swooped down, towards me, and I'm captivated by the long line of his legs and the catch of his breath and the heat from his skin and then his lips.

His lips, which are pressing very firmly against mine.

It is a dirty trick, and he knows it. He also knows that I couldn't stop if I wanted to.

And I don't. Want. To.

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My arms reach up to latch heavily around his waist, and I drag him down onto me, all warm squirming limbs and the hot press of his lips, which are still resolutely plunging into my own. He arches up like a cat and I can feel the taut muscles of his stomach press against mine, his ribs each sharp separate burns.

It scares me how much I want this.

I've had boys before; small little gay guys and dumb closet-jocks and mostly people drunk off their asses, hardly able to get out of their jeans without tripping and knocking over something. Roxas is none of these things; Roxas is dominant, pushing his hands against my cheekbones, grinding down as he pries open my mouth, and the friction, the grate of his teeth against mine, is enough to make me gasp. His hair is a halo of blond above our heads.

His hands slip lower, cupping my neck, flitting across my pulse, over the shoulders and down my body to grab my slim waist and push me; down, hard, so our bodies mesh together in a way that calls to mind keys and locks.

I'm shirtless but still wearing my pants; he's clothed in what he always is, jeans and a t-shirt. When he sits back and settles very near to a very sensitive part of my anatomy, it distracts me so much that I almost don't notice he's reaching for the drawstring in a very predatory way.

Well, I couldn't have that.

I grab the Roxas by the waist and flip us, so that I'm on top, with my hands pushing him down into the mattress and the comforter pooling around us. The lights from the window are soft and golden, and I wonder if it's something he's calculated, the effect of it. Roxas is staring up at me, completely calm, the sun in his cornflower eyes, thin mouth pretty and open. There is a smile in his eyes; the yellow slabs of sunlight makes his skin glow in heartbreaking ways. Past Roxas, beautiful Roxas, the Roxas I could never have; but mixed in with something frantic and feral, heavy as a burnt-out star.

"Hey," I say breathlessly.

He cracks a sad little smile. "Hi," he says back, and then I've swooped in and we're kissing again, and my fingers over his skin, and I can't get over the warmth of his body, the scorch of if where it touches mine.

Roxas bites the corner of my lip and and thumbs at my nipple, and when I gasp he rolls us again, so he's sitting prettily on top, as lazy and self-satisfied as a cat.

"Now, where were we?" he says, and his hands are at my pants again.

This time, I don't stop him.

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And when Roxas arches up, throwing his back, the light flares and illuminates him in a frame of white, and I have a flash of him lying dead on the kitchen floor, night-eyes, and his neck a bruised purple collar. But only for a second, because his hands are leaving scorch marks on my shoulders and his mouth is on mine again, hungry, alive.

"I'm sorry," he whispers against the shell of my ear, his breath shaky and warm. "I'm so sorry."

I reach for him, but he's already gone.

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fucking ffnet...fucking dividers...grumblegrumble

man, i wish i could sort out this ending. it might be awhile, guys, but it'll happen..hopefully. lemme know whatcha think --points at button below--

thanks!


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